School district adopts 'status quo' budget for next year

The Mountain Home School District wrapped June up by approving a "status quo" budget and signing a master contract with the local teachers' union before the July 1 deadline.

Under a new state law, teacher contracts can be imposed by a school board if a master contract is not agreed upon by that deadline. The new contract is similar to the old one and provides for traditional step increases in salaries, rather than freezing salaries as some districts have done.

The overall budget for the school district will remain at approximately $24 million, close to last year's budget. The district was able to use attrition from teachers retiring or leaving the district to be able to afford keeping all the programs it had last year.

At one point, for example, the district had considered canceling the French classes, but instead used the loss, due to attrition, of a social studies teacher at the high school to keep that program, although it will mean a small increase in social studies class sizes as students are spread out among the remaining teachers.

"Pretty much, we're status quo," said Supt. Tim McMurtrey. "We don't have any new programs. We're just trying to maintain the ones we have.

Because the district never really knows at budget time how much money it will get from federal impact aid funds, district officials decided to assume they would get roughly the same as last year. The money is used to pay the district for students of families who are federal employees, such as the military personnel on base, to make up for a variety of lost taxes caused by that federal employment.

"At this time," McMurtrey said, "we're told we'll be OK and we'll get the money" this fall, although sequester may play a part in the final amount paid to the district. If there are significant cuts in the impact aid funds, which represent roughly five percent of the district's budget, "they we'll just have to reopen the budget and punt" later this year, McMurtrey said.

Sequester has had additional effects on the district. Some federal programs, such as Title I for reading and math, or English as a second language programs, are facing cuts due to sequester. For Title I, it means a loss of about $32,000 in that program alone, or a little less than the cost for one teacher's salary.

"You keep programs like that going by reallocating resources, such as cutting certain supplies across the district," McMurtrey said.

"We're learning how to live lean. We may not like it, but we're determined to teach these kids and do the best job we can with the funding we have."

Much of the funding formula used for the bulk of state funds to the district is based on student enrollment. McMurtrey said the district is anticipating "flat" enrollment, which is an improvement over what has been a generally slow but steady decline in student numbers during the last 15 years.

Because of cutbacks in education funding from the legislature in recent years, Mountain Home is in the same boat as 100 of the 115 school districts in the state in having to float an emergency levy to maintain programs. Currently, that levy is about $2.7 million, but will expire next year.

Unless the legislature reverses its trend and provides significant funding increases to public schools, McMurtrey said the district would almost certainly have to try again for voter approval to renew the levy.

School will begin Aug. 14 this year, with registration set for Aug. 5.